


Aphrodite's Revenge

by Cerdic519



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Pygmalion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 16:23:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dinios is one of the best sculptors in Sparta. So when a mysterious woman asks him to create something beautiful from the purest marble, he agrees, little knowing that the resulting statue will change his life....</p><p>Inspired by Pygmalion</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aphrodite's Revenge

Aphrodite, goddess of love, wasn't feeling very loving right now. In fact, she badly wanted to hit someone. In order of preference, her lover, her husband, and all the other gods for making her feel so..... humiliated!  
Okay, so it was maybe just the teensiest little bit her fault.  
Okay, mostly her fault. But that didn't mean someone wasn't going to pay!  
She'd never wanted to marry Hephaestos. Honestly, god of metalwork? Boring! And he was as plain as a dog, and had a permanent limp from when his mother Hera had thrown him out of Olympus. But she'd gone along with it because Zeus asked (as in commanded) her to.  
That didn't mean a girl couldn't have a little fun on the side. Her husband was often away doing metally stuff for some king or other, so she had plenty of time to fill. And she filled it – and herself – with her brother Ares. Their affair had been going for years, and surely even someone as dumb as her husband should have noticed by now. But apparently no. He'd even presented her with a brand-new four-poster bed, with super-fine transparent curtains, promising her he'd 'help break it in' (ugh!) when he came back from making something metally for King Something-or-other. So naturally, she'd invited Ares over to make sure the bed got 'broken in' sooner rather than later.  
Except it turned out her husband wasn't as dumb as he looked. After she and her brother had gotten it together, they found those wonderfully fine curtains were in fact god-proof unbreakable chains. They were trapped. But the good news was that Hephaestos came back from his trip and said he'd release them both.  
The bad news was that, before so doing, he invited every damn god and goddess in Olympus along for a look! And to cap it all, once they were released, Ares fled somewhere and refused to answer her calls, leaving her alone to face the laughing deities.  
He was so going to pay for that. And since he'd recently been boasting about how one of his favourite acolytes had had a son who would be as great a warrior as his father, Aphrodite knew exactly how to hit him where it hurt!

Dinios came from a long line of warriors, all of whom had served Sparta well over the past two centuries. His father had died during the last war with the city’s eternal enemy, Athens, and the six-year-old Dinios and his two-year-old brother Samos had gone to live with his father’s old war buddy, Rovertos. He’d fully expected to be sent off to camp the following year like all Spartan children, but a chance trip to the sculptor had uncovered a hidden talent for stonework, such that when the city elders saw what the boy could do, they had made the almost unprecedented step of waiving his military service and apprenticing him instead to Viktor, the chief stonemason. By the time he reached eighteen, Dinios was producing work that graced many of the city’s main buildings, as well as being in demand from all the top families for their homes. He’d even been able to use his popularity to persuade the city to change his brother’s military service from front-line to tactical, Samos having displayed a talent to make the best use of the city’s small but ferocious armed forces. His novel idea to actually combine the army and navy in a joint operation had been responsible for seeing off the most recent Athenian attack.  
It was the day after Dinios' eighteenth birthday, and he was definitely feeling the worse for wear – how in Hades did someone as short as Gabriel put away all that alcohol and still remain upright? - when the woman entered his workshop. This in itself was unusual; women rarely made their own purchases in the city, and those few that came to see him used the small office out the front. This one walked straight into the workshop itself, her sandals scuffling against the dusty floor. She had the air of someone important, and someone who knew she was someone important.  
“You are the one they call Dinios?”  
Her voice had a strange, almost musical quality to it. A faint warning-bell rang at the back of Dinios' mind. Normally he’d come on to anyone as beautiful as this in under a minute, but some inner instinct warned him to hold off.  
“I am, my lady”, he said, wiping the dust off his hands. “What can I do for you?”  
She looked at him thoughtfully.  
“I would like to make you an offer.”  
“Go on.”  
“I have acquired a large block of marble, more than enough for a full sized human statue. I want you to make something beautiful.”  
He looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate, but it seemed that was it.  
“Just ‘something beautiful’”, he echoed.  
“Yes”, she said, producing a leather bag. “I know you do not use money as such here, but this bag contains one hundred gold pieces. I will pay you at least fifty, and up to the full hundred if I like the finished product.”  
Dinios blanched. Even if he only got the fifty, it was more than five times the going rate for a full-sized statue. And with Sammy dreaming of doing a year or two travelling round the Greek centres of learning, he needed all the money he could get.  
“And all you want is ‘something beautiful'?” he said. “Not a lot to go on.”  
She smiled.  
“I’m sure someone as talented as your good self can produce something that would make even a god happy. There is no time pressure. You can leave a message at the Temple of Aphordite when you are finished. The stone will be delivered tomorrow.”  
“I haven’t said I’ll accept yet”, Dinios said, a little annoyed at her presumption.  
“Oh, I think you will!” she laughed. “The chance to make something totally of your own choice? Just make sure it’s human, or mostly human, and I’m sure I’ll love whatever you choose to create. Goodbye, Dean.”  
She was gone before he had a chance to ask her how she knew the name only his brother ever used. Dinios sighed, and went back to finish off a small statue of Kerberos.

Aphrodite made one more call before returning to Olympus. It was lucky that Morpheus, the god of dreams, owed her a favour.

He was lying naked on the grass when he heard the distinct cound of wings beating. He wanted to look up, but something made him stay where he was.  
The – creature, whatever it was, had landed a few feet away from him, and drew slowly nearer, until it came fully into his view. It looked human, except for the two great black wings protruding from its back, which arched over Dinios so completely that they almost blotted out the sun. Yet it wasn't the wings which most drew his attention, but the impossibly blue cerulean eyes that were boring into him, as if they were looking right into his soul.  
“Angel”, Dinios whispered, as he turned over and tried to get some sleep.

When he came down into his workshop early the next morning, he found the promised stone had already arrived. It was the purest white marble, but with different-coloured blue veins running through it almost like human ones. It was indeed a thing of beauty – and after the dream Dinios had had the night before, he now knew exactly what he was going to make with it. If he could get it to work, the finished product would be beautiful indeed.  
He set to work, and spent all day on his new project. When he felt himself falling asleep, he realized he hadn’t actually eaten, he’d been so obsessed with what he was creating. He draped a blue cloth over the statue, and went off to find some food.  
That night, the 'angel' appeared in his dreams again.

After two weeks, a recognizable shape was beginning to emerge from the rectangular block. It was a human figure, just under six-foot tall (slightly shorter than Dinios and a lot shorter than his brother, both of whom were well above average height). But what made it different was the slender yet strong wings that protruded from its back, poised as if the creature had been just about to spread them before being turned to stone.  
It was perhaps fortunate that Dinios had such a good reputation, and everyone knew he only ever worked on one major project at a time, so those who requested his services over the next few weeks were prepared to wait. His brother nagged him about forgetting to eat whilst he worked, but always made sure there was food in the workshop for when the sculptor was on the point of collapsing from sheer exhaustion. It wasn't that he was hurrying to finish the statue; he just wanted to make it perfect.

The weeks rolled by, and the bare statue was finished. Normally Dinios would have just painted some clothes on it and have done, but although he did paint the wings black, he painted the rest of the skin a natural pale cream, and placed a leather cross-shoulder strap on its chest, holding up a short battle-skirt that (barely) hid the statue’s modesty (he'd been quite generous down there). Quite why Dinios was worried about the modesty of a lump of stone, he had no idea, but when he put it on, he blushed almost as much as when he’d sculpted the statue’s private parts.  
It was only a lump of stone, he told himself. But as he looked into those impossibly blue eyes, beneath those long lashes – both painted on by his own hand - he felt this was so much more. He’d created something wonderful, and he didn’t want to part with it. He had even come up with a name for the thing – Castiel – from an old legend about a daemon who helped people in love. But the stone belonged to the woman, and there was no way he could afford something as expensive as it must have been.  
He knew in his heart that he was just playing for time now, and that time was fast running out. But it was Aphrodite’s festival at the end of this week, and he felt if he could just delay the inevitable, he might appeal to the goddess, and, well, she might do… something?

That hope sustained him up to the day of the festival, when the woman walked back into the shop just after he had opened up.  
“Hullo, Dinios!” she smiled brightly. “I see you’ve finished.”  
“I want to buy him off you!” he blurted out. “I know I don’t have the money just now, but I’ll get it. Or I’ll do anything else you want. Just… don’t take him.”  
“Him?” she said inquiringly.  
“Please!”  
She sighed, then much to Dinios’ surprise, grinned.  
“My brother’s going to hate me for doing this, you know!”  
“Your brother?” Dinios asked, confused.  
“Ares.”  
She smiled at him, watching as he slowly realized. She knew he’d got there when he fell to his knees.  
“Aphrodite!”  
“Sorry, Dinios. I sort of changed your life a bit by giving you some of my husband’s skills when you were young, so I could get back at my useless brother. You could have been a great army leader, though you’d have died a few years down the line defending your city. My way was much better, don’t you think?”  
“And… Castiel?”  
She smirked.  
“Why don’t you go and ask him?”  
He looked confusedly at her, as she pointed him into the back room where he had been working on the statue, then slowly walked through the door and went up to it. It was still covered in its blue cloth, and he gently removed it, before turning to stow it away in a cupboard.  
There was a sudden gasp from behind him.  
He turned round so fast that he nearly fell over. The statue was still there – except now the creamy marble was flushing with the colour of real skin, the dark hair was ruffling slightly in the breeze from the open window, and the eyes – those brilliant blue eyes were staring straight at him.  
“Dinios?” he said in a surprisingly deep voice.  
“Castiel?”  
The former statue spread his wings as far as he could in the cramped room, before folding them gently behind his back. Then he stepped silently across to his creator, and slowly kissed him. His lips were soft and fresh; Dinios could feel the life-force pumping through him as the giant black wings folded around his back to create a cocoon he never wanted to leave.  
“You’re alive!” he said, stupidly.  
“I love you, Dinios. You created me, and you poured your love into the stone that made me.”  
“I love you too, Cas.”  
Castiel pulled his wings back, and to Dinios’ shock, they vanished.  
“What happened?” he asked, alarmed.  
The other man laughed, a deep, throaty laugh that sounded wonderful to the sculptor.  
“I can sheathe my wings when needed. Now, I think we both have something very important to do, don’t you?”  
What was left of Dinios’s mind scrambled into action, but failed to supply an answer.  
“What?” he squeaked.  
“We have to tell Sam that you’re about to be married!”  
Dinios pulled him in for another kiss.  
“Later!” he growled. “Much later!”

They did eventually tell Samos. Though Dinios may have regretted leaving Castiel so much stone in… certain areas. He was sure his legs were even more bowed than before.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: 'daemon' is used in the correct sense here. The Ancient Greeks used the word for all minor deities, helpful or not. Only in Christian times did it become used primarily for evil spirits.


End file.
